DESCRIPTION OF TUTORIAL

Please keep in mind that this is a digital tutorial, but this can be drawn traditionally as well, of course!

SKETCHING

1. Quickly sketch an outline of about how you want the paw the be formed. This means... determine its pose!^^ You can also start with simple lines instead of drawing the outline to determine its pose and create something dynamic.

2. Draw the claws. I like to start with the claws at once, because they can give the paw a whole new expression depending on how they are drawn (Where they "point").

3. Mark the "toes/fingers", and perhaps some muscles... You can go detailed if you wish to!

5. Add the paw pads. Depending on the dynamic, the paw pads can be visible or not visible when the paw is standing on the ground. As you can see, I drew them visible. ^^

LINEART

6. Lower the opacity of the layer of the sketch, but it has to be comfortably visible.

7. I created a new layer OVER the sketch, and began drawing the lineart. It´s important that the lineart has to be clean and accurate.

8. The sketch is either hidden or deleted, and we got the lineart alone.

COLORING

9. On a layer UNDER the lineart, we can give our new paw a flat color.

10. Either if you want to draw a natural animal with natural colors, create your own unique character, or want to draw a specific character, begin vary the paw with some different colors. : )

11. Many would call this shading, but I don´t. I would say this is making the paw look more "3D", or texturizing some fur. This is very primary! I chose a blue-purple color on a new layer, set on "Multiply". On quite low opacity, but the choice of color or opacity all depends on you and what you think looks best and right for the mood of your artwork.

SHADING

There are many ways to shade, and these are only three examples, out of billions.

12 a).The light source is coming from the left. On a new layer on "multiply", I drew the shadows themselves on the paw.

12 b). The light source is coming about from above, and the opacity is lower than from point 12 a). As you can see, I edited the color of the lineart! Be creative and find some cool things to do with your drawing.

12 c). Here, I deleted the lineart and painted the shadows instead. Lineless painting is something different from drawing.

Yep! Hope it was helpful somehow. Hm, this was supposed to only be a paw tutorial, but it ended up explaining more factors... like use of colors. Remember, this is only SOME ways to do things. If you experiment, you will find your own way to do things. Go with what that gives results, and which feels comfortable for you. The boxes to the left are important to read as well. Good luck, and thanks so much.

I'm doing good, I had totally forgotten that I'd wrote that message. I wrote that two days before my old pair of headphones broke. During the absence of my headphones I soon found out that I need music to draw so I finally earned another thirty dollars and bought myself a pair however took me til two days ago to earn it then I had to buy them.

Anyway, I don't know what I'd do if I were popular. I mean I would try to reply but if my inbox were to keep growing larger and larger every day, I'd have some problems.

Uhm... o_o If you´ve ever seen any of my artwork uploaded elsewhere, it must be stolen or mistaken. =O Every single of my uploaded deviations are original, included this one. I didn´t even use references to make this tutorial. Soon I´m going to make a video as well.

Haha, you are very welcome! I still have to make the video for this tutorial. ^^It did? Maybe when you have got some constructive thoughts about drawing paws, understanding your dog´s paws will be easier. <333 Good luck with practicing!